INTHEBLACK September 2026 - Flipbook - Page 46
F E AT U R E
“If you ignore AI, employees will seek out their own solutions
using free consumer products, which can create a much greater
security and compliance risk. The objective should not be to
prevent the use of AI, but to provide secure tools, clear policies
and appropriate training so it can be used responsibly.”
WILLIAM YOUNG FCPA, PRAXIO AI
READ
an article about
how to avoid
BYOAI at work
READ
an article on
whether AI agents
should be treated
as colleagues
46 INTHEBLACK September 2026
validate the conclusions, examine the
supporting evidence and determine
whether the output is appropriate
for the circumstances,” Perrett says.
Using AI agents responsibly is not
a set-and-forget exercise.
“You need to have policies and controls
in place, then you should be performing
continuous testing in the organisation to
make sure employees are using it properly
and risks are being managed,” Young says.
For accounting and finance teams that are
experimenting with AI agents, one approach
is to treat a new agent like a new colleague.
“Qualify it. Understand how it does the
job and test it on work where you already
know the right answer before you let it touch
anything live,” says Bryan Sng, co-founder
and COO of AI-agent accounting platform,
SimpleAI. “Check it closely in the early
months, the way you would review a new
hire under probation before trusting them
unsupervised. Keep a periodic control check
running on the system, the same as any internal
audit. To effectively implement AI agents,
certain parts of your processes have to change.
“Verify by reconciling the output back
to an independent source like the bank
statement or the source invoice,” Sng
continues. “Reduce oversight only when
you have evidence the agent is reliable,
not just because three months have passed.
Keep a regular check on the agent’s output
to ensure it is working as desired.”
Spot checks and full, regular reconciliations
are also essential.
“Randomly select accounting vouchers,
journal entries and report items to compare
AI outputs with original source data, and
reconcile total accounts to check data
consistency,” says Collin Jin FCPA,
Deloitte China audit and assurance
innovation and digital services leader,
and president of CPA Australia’s
East and Central China committee.
“Then, apply rule-based cross-verification.
Embed accounting standards, accounting
policies and logical formulas into inspection
rules to spot abnormal entries, mismatched
figures and unreasonable analytical
conclusions automatically.
“Two employees should be responsible
for checking the output,” he continues.
“Allow junior employees to conduct primary
verification, while senior financial professionals
can do a secondary audit, especially with
financial statements and critical analytical
results. To make sure the system is working,
track model performance continuously and
record error rates regularly, then retrain and
optimise AI models when deviations happen.
Use historical and simulated business data
to verify AI adaptability under complex
conditions. Such multilayered checks ensure
the accuracy, compliance and reliability of
AI-generated financial outputs.”
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Any fully autonomous AI or agentic system
should be approached with caution.
“While AI can deliver impressive speed and
accuracy, accounting and finance professionals
operate in an environment where privacy,
confidentiality, regulatory obligations and
professional judgement are critical,” Perrett
says. “AI systems can and do make mistakes.
More importantly, some of the decisions
professionals make involve subjective judgement
where there is no single correct answer.”
Figuring out what should be done by
an agent, a human or a robot — and how
they work together — is the challenge.
In the long term, every finance team
will have access to similar AI tools.
The differentiator will be how effectively
businesses use that technology. ■
